1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the art of displaying charts and graphics and, more specifically, to a device for retaining pages on a flip chart.
2. Description of Related Art
The presentation of graphics and written materials for teaching and for business and other meetings has undergone considerable development in recent years. In the beginning there was the ubiquitous blackboard or slate. At one time the boards were actually black and were written on with sticks of chalk. Today, the board is more likely than not white or beige and is written on with special felt markers. In either case, the blackboard provides erasable information in a format that is large enough to be easily read by an audience and is presented interactively. That is, material is added or subtracted from the board as a lecturer speaks or in response to a question from the audience.
A major problem with all blackboard systems is their limited writing space. This means that sooner or later the speaker will erase part of the board and will be unable to refer again to that information. Also, it is very difficult to prepare a presentation in advance-one cannot bring in prepared sections of blackboard. One solution is an overhead projector which allows a speaker to draw or write as on a blackboard or use graphics prepared in advance to demonstrate more complex topics. The most recent advance to the overhead projector has been computer interfaces that can be placed on the overhead projector and display graphics generated by a MACINTOSH or other graphically-oriented computer system. However, all overhead projectors suffer from the shortcoming of being unable to show more than one image at a time.
A low tech alternative to the overhead projector is a flip chart. In its simplest form, the flip chart is merely a very large pad of paper. The lecturer uses felt markers or crayons to illustrate points. The flip chart is used like a blackboard, but the usual flip chart is not erasable. Instead, a new sheet of paper is revealed by tearing off the original sheet or by flipping it over the top of the pad. Thus, there is a need for a system that can easily accommodate an erasable board and a flip chart.
There are at least two advantages to the flip chart. First, it is quite simple to prepare much or all of the material in advance. Furthermore, the charts are usually small enough to be readily carried from place to place. Second, the chart is permanent so that sheets can be referred to repeatedly and even saved as a record of the presentation. One effective technique is to ask the audience questions as one writes on the chart. Audience consensus is then recorded on the chart. As ideas are developed, the key charts can be torn from the pad and taped or hung about the room so that they are always available for instant reference.
Once the charts are torn from the pad, there is a need for reassembling and holding a group of single sheets. A number of devices have been developed for this purpose. The most common way to use flip charts is on an easel-like structure that holds a pad of chart pages at a convenient height for audience viewing. Most often a clamp-like arrangement is provided to hold the pad. The clamp may be provided with teeth so that it can also grip and hold a limited number of loose sheets. Another solution is to provide flip chart sheets that are prepunched so they can be held by a device similar to a ring binder. A problem with ring binders is that they may open accidentally, causing the sheets to tumble out. Or the rings may be made too difficult to open easily in a misguided effort to prevent accidental opening.